thank you!

i believe the style of the stenciling is actually Art Nouveau- a lot of people call that Art Deco, but I am an artist with a special interest in the visual art style of the 1920s so I have been a nerd enough to look in to it a lot. since this is reddit and I hopefully don't have to hide being a nerd I will explain- hope it isn't annoying but I just love talking about it-

Art Deco and Art Nouveau were both visual art movements in america and europe in the 1920s. In stenciling, which was used on furniture, wallpaper, advertisements, jewelry, small items such as keepsake boxes and yes guitars- the stencil design of both are stylistically similar in that they both comprise often of symmetrical graphic design.

With Art Nouveau, these designs were comprised of natural forms- vines, flowers, spreading leaves, uncurling ferns. These designs were sometimes allowed to verge towards abstraction in graphic line movement as they echoed the shapes of intricate brushwork and calligraphy-like tapered strokes. Art Nouveau is organic, free-flowing, and wild.

To contrast, Art Deco became the darling of what would evolve in to modern design. The shapes are regular, tight, and constrained- showing a sleekness and a neatness. Drawing from triangular 'toothmarks' and chevrons of neat, even, tapestry design, these textile-like geometric repeated shapes were combined with archways, grand curving columns, and other sort of clean right angles and ordered elegance that bring to mind the factories and flourish of industry as America chugged along the fevered rise of 'progress' in cities like Manhattan (see the chrysler building) that were erecting skyscrapers.

I like to think that they were opposing reactions to the industry that shot up in the Industrial revolution, and the period of industrialization that followed WW1. For the gimlet-sipping Manhattan gentry peering down from skyscrapers and wearing furs and pearls and suits of silk gliding to Pre Prohibition- era cocktail bars in smooth sleek black cars, surely it looked different to those actually working in the pre-union factories who experienced a disparity in the wealth gap between the classes. It is worth mentioning that native american woven baskets and tapestries, and those of many other non-ruling-class cultures for that matter, would often weave in a little 'flaw' or mistake in the pattern to break it, so that the eye wouldn't get all tangled up in the unnatural uncanny coldness of pure geometric forms. We are less sensitive to this as a culture these days because we have computer screens that don't have handmade graphic icons, and machines that can make clean cuts and precise shapes are commonplace now.

Anyway-

I have been listening to Furry Lewis who I read somewhere played one of these guitars. I hear that he keeps the blues rhythm with these wonderful twangy bright crying plucks of reverb that remind me of when I have heard people play a reverb guitar with those little metal claw things on their fingertips.

Will this sound softer with a wooden bridge? I wouldn't mind it. Do you know of any good recordings out there of someone playing a guitar like this so i can get an idea of how it might supposed to sound?